The King’s Poetic Body
Historical Record and Literary Aesthetics in Nineteenth-century Rajasthan
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.12797/CIS.27.2025.02.07Keywords:
Jaipur, kingship, play, Rajputs, sexualityAbstract
This article considers the relationships between poetry, comportment, and performativity in early-19th century Rajput courts. I argue that in their historical and textual representations, court intellectuals fashioned kings’ poetic bodies, which coded their behaviour through literary conventions—drawn from Sanskrit and Hindi poetics and more local traditions of Rajasthan—and modelled refined, aesthetically nuanced dispositions for later rulers. I foreground these intellectuals’ interest in pleasure and play, and underline the significance of sexuality and embodiment in their accounts. My focus is on the Jayavaṁśa mahākāvya, which narrates the lives, reigns, and passions of the rulers of Amer-Jaipur. The text was first written in Sanskrit, and then re-interpreted in Hindi prose, and I suggest this vernacular interpretation speaks to an evolving understanding of kingship in the colonial period.
References
Ali, D. 2004. Courtly Culture and Political Life in Early Medieval India. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Bahura, G. N. 1976. Literary Heritage of the Rulers of Amber and Jaipur. Jaipur: Maharaja Sawai Man Singh II Museum.
Baṁsal, M. 1991. Jayavaṁśa mahākavyā kā tulnātmak evaṁ samālocanātmak adhyayan. Delhi: Bhāvnā Prakāśan.
Borek, P. 2020. Indian Vernacular History-Writing and Its Ideological Engagement: A Contemporary Account on Shivaji’s Visit to Agra (1666) in Brajbhāṣā Verse. In: Cracow Indological Studies, 22(1): 1–17. https://doi.org/10.12797/CIS.22.2020.01.01. DOI: https://doi.org/10.12797/CIS.22.2020.01.01
Bryant, E. F. 2003. Krishna: The Beautiful Legend of God. London: Penguin.
Busch, A. 2012. Portrait of a Raja in a Badshah’s World: Amrit Rai’s Biography of Man Singh (1585). In: Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient, 55(2–3): 287–328. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1163/15685209-12341237
Busch, A. 2017. The Poetry of History in Early Modern India. In: P. Lambert and B. Weiler (eds). How the Past Was Used: Historical Cultures, c. 750–2000.
London: British Academy Scholarship: 161–180. https://doi.org/10.5871/bacad/9780197266120.003.0007. DOI: https://doi.org/10.5871/bacad/9780197266120.003.0007
Chatterjee, K. 2009. The Cultures of History in Early Modern India: Persianization and Mughal Culture in Bengal. New Delhi: Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195698800.001.0001. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195698800.001.0001
Cherian, D. 2023. Merchants of Virtue: Hindus, Muslims, and Untouchables in Eighteenth-Century South Asia. Berkeley: University of California Press. https://doi.org/10.1525/9780520390065. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1525/9780520390065
Cimino, R. M. 2001. Wall Paintings of Rajasthan: Amber and Jaipur. New Delhi: Aryan Books International.
Clémentin-Ojha, C. 1999. Le Trident sur le palais: une cabale anti-vishnouite dans un royaume hindou à l'époque coloniale. Paris: Presses de l'École française d'Extrême-Orient.
Droogers, A. 2012. Play and Power in Religion: Collected Essays. Berlin: De Gruyter. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110259513. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110259513
Elias, N. 2014. The Court Society. Dublin: University College Dublin Press.
Franko, M. 2003. Majestic Drag: Monarchical Performativity and the King’s Body Theatrical. In: The Drama Review, 47(2): 71–87. https://doi.org/10.1162/105420403321921247. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1162/105420403321921247
Glynn, C. 2018. Becoming the Hero: Metamorphosis of the Raja. In: C. Branfoot (ed.). Portraiture in South Asia since the Mughals: Art, Representation and History. London: I.B. Tauris: 125–144. DOI: https://doi.org/10.5040/9781350987579.ch-005
Harlan, L. 1992. Religion and Rajput Women: The Ethic of Protection in Contemporary Narratives. New Delhi: Munshiram Manoharlal. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1525/9780520378414
Horstmann, M. 2006. Visions of Kingship in the Twilight of Mughal Rule. Amsterdam: Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences.
Horstmann, M. 2013. Jaipur 1778: The Making of a King. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag. DOI: https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctvc16m7b
Imam, F. 2014. Decoding the Rhetoric of Morality in 18th Century India: The Interventionist Nature of the Jaipur State. In: Indian Journal of Gender Studies, 21(3): 401–419. https://doi.org/10.1177/0971521514540709. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/0971521514540709
Joshi, V. 1995. Polygamy and Purdah: Women and Society among Rajputs. Jaipur, New Delhi: Rawat Publications.
Kantorowicz, E. 1957. The King’s Two Bodies: A Study in Medieval Political Theology. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Kālidāsa. 2024. The Lineage of the Raghus. C. Dezső, D. Goodall and H. Isaacson (ed., transl.). Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Khera, D. 2020. The Place of Many Moods: Udaipur’s Painted Lands and India’s Eighteenth Century. Princeton: Princeton University Press. DOI: https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctvz938s7
Māgha. 2017. The Killing of Shishupala. P. Dundas (ed., transl.). Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
O’Hanlon, R. 2007. Kingdom, Household and Body History, Gender and Imperial Service under Akbar. In: Modern Asian Studies, 41(5): 889–923. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0026749X06002654. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0026749X06002654
O’Hanlon, R. 2011. Speaking from Siva’s Temple: Banaras Scholar Households and the Brahman ‘Ecumene’ of Mughal India. In: South Asian History and Culture, 2(2): 253–277. https://doi.org/10.1080/19472498.2011.553496. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/19472498.2011.553496
Padmākar. 1882. Jagadvinoda. Lucknow: Naval Kishor.
Pandey, T. 2023. The Half Princess. Gurugram: Ebury Press.
Peterson, I. V. 2003. Design and Rhetoric in a Sanskrit Court Epic: The Kirātārjunīya of Bhāravi. Albany: State University of New York Press. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1353/book4622
Peterson, I. V. 2012. The Schools of Serfoji II of Tanjore: Education and Princely Modernity in Early Nineteenth-century India. In: M. S. Dodson and B. A. Hatcher (eds). Trans-Colonial Modernities in South Asia. London: Routledge: 15–44. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203135396. DOI: https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203135396
Rao, V. N. et al. 1992. Symbols of Substance: Court and State in Nāyaka Period Tamilnadu. Delhi: Oxford University Press.
Rao, V. N. et al. 2003. Textures of Time: Writing History in South India 1600–1800. New York: Other Press.
Saran, R. D. and N. P. Ziegler. 2001. The Meṛtīyo Rāṭhoṛs of Meṛto, Rājathān: Select Translations Bearing on the History of a Rajput Family, 1462–1660.
Vols 1–2. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan, Center for South and Southeast Asian Studies. https://doi.org/10.3998/mpub.19305. DOI: https://doi.org/10.3998/mpub.19305
Sarkar, J. and R. Sinh (eds). 2009 [1984]. A History of Jaipur, c. 1503–1938. Hyderabad: Orient Blackswan.
Śarmā, A. 2001. Raskapūr. New Delhi: Rajkamal Paperbacks.
Śāstrī, P. 1980. Jaypur kī saṁskr̥ t sāhitya ko den, 1835–1965. Jaipur: Publication Scheme.
Schechner, R. 1985. Between Theatre and Anthropology. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.
Sreenivasan, R. 2006. Drudges, Dancing Girls, Concubines: Female Slaves in Rajput Polity, 1500–1850. In: I. Chatterjee and R. M. Eaton (eds). Slavery and South Asian History. Bloomington–Indianapolis: Indiana University Press: 136–161.
Stern, R. W. 1988. The Cat and the Lion: Jaipur State in the British Raj. Leiden, New York: E. J. Brill. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004669253
Talbot, C. 2007. The Mewar Court’s Construction of History. In: J. Williams (ed.). Kingdom of the Sun: Indian Court and Village Art from the Princely State of Mewar. San Francisco: Asian Art Museum: 13–33.
Talbot, C. 2007. 2018. A Poetic Record of the Rajput Rebellion, c. 1680. In: Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, 28(3): 461–483. https://doi.org/10.1017/S135618631800007X. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S135618631800007X
Talbot, C. 2007. 2022. Caught in a Conflict of Loyalties: Rathor Ramsingh’s Death, 1577. In: Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East, 42(2): 325–333. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1215/1089201X-9987775
Tillotson, G. 2006. Jaipur Nama: Tales from the Pink City. Gurgaon: Penguin.
Tod, J. 1957 [1832]. Annals and Antiquities of Rajast’han, vol. 2. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.
Turek, A. 2024. Rajput Vocabulary of Violence. In: Cracow Indological Studies, 26(2): 241–258. https://doi.org/10.12797/CIS.26.2024.02.10. DOI: https://doi.org/10.12797/CIS.26.2024.02.10
Venkatkrishnan, A. 2015. Ritual, Reflection, and Religion: The Devas of Banaras. In: South Asian History and Culture, 6(1): 147–171. https://doi.org/10.1080/19472498.2014.969015. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/19472498.2014.969015
Vig, J. 2020. Intertextuality and Reception History: Connecting Bhai Vir Singh’s Srī Kalgīdhar Camatkār to Gurbilās Literature. In: Sikh Formations, 16(1–2): 28–40. https://doi.org/10.1080/17448727.2019.1674514. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/17448727.2019.1674514
Williams, R. D. 2022. Mannered Moods: Sound and Sense in Mewar Painting and Poetry. In: D. Diamond and D. Khera (eds). A Splendid Land: Paintings from Royal Udaipur. München,Chicago: Hirmer and Chicago University Press: 41–51.
Williams, T. et al (eds). 2018. Text and Tradition in Early Modern North India. New Delhi: Oxford University Press. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780199478866.001.0001
Downloads
Published
Versions
- 2025-12-05 (2)
- 2025-11-25 (1)
Issue
Section
License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
